Alan N. Young

The applicant, who pled guilty to manslaughter in 1986, sought a post-conviction disclosure order from the Crown in aid of an application for a Ministerial Review under s. 696.1 of the Criminal Code, claiming he had falsely confessed and was wrongfully convicted.

The Superior Court of Justice dismissed the application for a disclosure order as premature (because the applicant had not exhausted his appeals) and moot (because the Crown had already disclosed all available documents).

However, the court granted declaratory relief, holding that the superior court has jurisdiction under s. 24(1) of the Charter to make post-conviction disclosure orders in aid of a Ministerial Review, and that convicted persons do not need the Crown's consent to communicate with public officials regarding their convictions.

The Attorney General of Ontario appealed a motion judge's dismissal of its motion to strike an application brought by a convicted offender seeking post-conviction disclosure of police records.

The Divisional Court found that the motion judge's one-paragraph endorsement lacked sufficient reasons regarding the plain and obvious test, standing, and prematurity, preventing meaningful appellate review.

The appeal was granted, the decision quashed, and the matter remitted to a different judge of the Superior Court for a fresh hearing.

The respondent, who operated a body rub parlour licensed by the City of Vaughan, was charged with contravening a municipal by-law governing the hours of operation of body rub parlours.

He challenged the constitutionality of the by-law, arguing it was ultra vires the municipality because it constituted criminal law.

A justice of the peace and the Ontario Court of Justice agreed, finding the provisions were criminal in pith and substance and invaded federal authority.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that the pith and substance of the hours of operation provision was business licensing, falling within provincial authority over property and civil rights and licensing.

The court found the lower courts erred by focusing exclusively on extrinsic evidence while ignoring intrinsic evidence, and by failing to recognize that municipalities may legislate to suppress conditions conducive to crime when anchored in a valid provincial head of power.

The moving party sought leave to appeal a motion judge's decision dismissing its motion to strike the responding party's constitutional application for post-conviction disclosure.

The Divisional Court granted leave to appeal, finding that the motion judge's reasons were inadequate and failed to properly analyze the issues of standing and prematurity, satisfying the test under Rule 62.02(4)(b).

The Attorney General of Ontario sought leave to appeal an order dismissing its motion to strike an application concerning post-conviction disclosure and Charter rights for convicted offenders who have served their sentences.

The court granted leave to appeal, finding that the motion judge's reasons were inadequate and conclusory, failing to provide sufficient rationale for dismissing the motion to strike.

The court also found that the motion judge applied the "plain and obvious" test incorrectly to issues of standing and prematurity, which should have been subject to different principles.

The issues raised were deemed to be of public importance, satisfying the conjunctive test for leave to appeal under rule 62.02(4)(b).

The applicant sought judicial review of decisions by the Independent Police Review Director and the Chief of Police classifying an unjustified strip search by a police officer as misconduct 'not of a serious nature' under the Police Services Act.

The applicant argued that an unjustified strip search must always be classified as serious misconduct and that the failure to hold a disciplinary hearing breached procedural fairness.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application, holding that the Director and Chief have statutory discretion to assess the seriousness of misconduct based on the specific circumstances.

The court found the decisions were reasonable given the facts, including that the search was conducted privately, without touching, and in accordance with policy, and that no hearing was required once the misconduct was reasonably deemed not serious.

The applicant sought a declaratory judgment affirming the Superior Court's jurisdiction under section 24(1) of the Charter to order post-conviction disclosure for individuals claiming wrongful conviction.

The respondent, the Attorney General of Ontario, brought a motion to strike the application, arguing the applicant lacked standing, the application was premature, and it failed to meet the section 7 Charter test.

The court dismissed the motion to strike, finding that the respondent had not met the high threshold of demonstrating it was plain, obvious, and beyond doubt that the application could not succeed.

Current and former sex workers challenged three Criminal Code provisions prohibiting bawdy-houses, living on avails, and public communication for prostitution purposes.

The Court held the provisions deprived security of the person by materially increasing risks of violence and preventing safety-enhancing measures, and that the deprivations were not in accordance with fundamental justice due to gross disproportionality and overbreadth.

The Court affirmed that lower courts may revisit precedent when a new legal issue or significant evidentiary change is shown, and confirmed deference to trial findings on social and legislative facts absent palpable and overriding error.

Section 210 (as related to prostitution), section 212(1)(j), and section 213(1)(c) were declared unconstitutional.

Invalidity was suspended for one year to permit legislative response.

The respondent, convicted of first-degree murder, sought a declaration that he could apply for a ministerial review of his conviction under s. 696.1 of the Criminal Code without first seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The application judge granted the declaration, finding that the Minister of Justice is not precluded from determining that an applicant has exhausted their rights of appeal despite not applying for leave to the SCC.

The Attorney General of Ontario appealed, and the respondent cross-appealed.

The Court of Appeal dismissed both the appeal and cross-appeal, agreeing with the application judge's analysis.

The appellant sought appellate relief after a lower court refused to grant a declaration that the Crown has a general post-trial and post-appeal duty to preserve evidence for the lifetime of an offender convicted of a life-imprisonment indictable offence.

The application below had been grounded in the loss of autopsy photographs said to be potentially relevant to a miscarriage of justice review under s. 696.1 of the Criminal Code, but the appellant accepted on appeal that no Charter breach had been established from their loss.

The Court of Appeal held there was no basis to entertain the appeal because the appellant advanced a new declaratory theory not supported by the record and not adjudicated below.

The appeal was dismissed, with no costs.

The applicant, convicted of first-degree murder and unsuccessful on appeal to the Court of Appeal, sought a declaration that he was not required to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada before applying for ministerial review of his conviction under s. 696.1 of the Criminal Code.

The Attorney General of Ontario argued that all appeal avenues, including a leave application to the Supreme Court, must be exhausted before ministerial review could proceed.

The court held that although the phrase “rights of judicial review or appeal” includes the right to seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, the concept of exhaustion must be interpreted flexibly.

Determining whether appeal rights have been exhausted is a discretionary screening decision for the Minister of Justice, not the provincial Attorney General.

The court declared that the Minister may determine that appeal rights are exhausted even where no leave application to the Supreme Court has been made.

The applicant, convicted of first-degree murder in 1984, sought a declaration that section 7 of the Charter requires the Crown to preserve all Stinchcombe disclosure material for the lifetime of the offender.

She alleged her section 7 rights were violated because autopsy photographs from her trial were lost or destroyed.

The court dismissed the application, finding that even if a post-appeal duty to preserve evidence exists, the loss of the photographs was adequately explained given the passage of time and lack of retention policies in the 1980s.

Furthermore, the applicant suffered no prejudice as the photographs would not have assisted in demonstrating her innocence.

In a Charter application brought by a person convicted of first degree murder seeking a declaration that evidence in homicide cases must be preserved for the lifetime of the offender, the respondent Attorney General moved to strike portions of affidavit evidence and parts of the amended notice of application and constitutional question.

The impugned affidavits contained second‑hand information about other alleged wrongful conviction investigations and lost evidence.

The court held the affidavit material could remain in the record for the limited purpose of illustrating the types of evidence that may be lost post‑conviction, but not to prove the truth of the allegations in those other cases.

However, paragraphs in the amended notice of application and notice of constitutional question relying on alleged loss of evidence in other cases were struck because the applicant lacked standing to advance constitutional claims based on those matters.

The motion was therefore granted in part.

The respondents challenged the constitutionality of three Criminal Code provisions relating to prostitution: operating a common bawdy-house, living on the avails of prostitution, and communicating for the purpose of prostitution.

The application judge struck down all three provisions as violating section 7 of the Charter.

On appeal, the Court of Appeal upheld the striking down of the bawdy-house provision (suspended for 12 months) and read in an exploitation requirement to the living on the avails provision.

However, the Court of Appeal reversed the application judge's decision on the communicating provision, finding it did not violate the principles of fundamental justice and was a justified limit on freedom of expression, binding the lower court to the Supreme Court's previous decision in the Prostitution Reference.

The moving party, Maggie's: The Toronto Sex Workers' Action Project, brought a motion to intervene in an appeal concerning the constitutionality of prostitution-related offences.

The moving party sought to raise a new challenge under s. 15 of the Charter and to argue that the legislation was impermissibly driven by moral views.

The court dismissed the motion to intervene on the s. 15 issue, finding that the evidentiary record was not developed for such a challenge and that allowing it would be unfair to the parties and delay the appeal.

The court also declined to grant separate intervener status on the morality issue, as it was already being raised by others, but permitted the moving party to join an existing intervener group.

The Attorney General of Canada brought a motion to stay the judgment of the Superior Court of Justice, which struck down several prostitution-related provisions of the Criminal Code as unconstitutional, pending appeal.

The moving party argued that the judgment created a legislative void with profound implications for the public interest.

Applying the RJR-MacDonald test, the court found that there was a serious issue to be tried, the government would suffer irreparable harm to the public interest without a stay, and the balance of convenience favoured maintaining the status quo.

The motion was granted and the judgment was stayed for a limited period to permit appellate review.

The applicants, a pharmacist and his patients, brought a motion for an interim stay of the Executive Officer's decision to terminate the pharmacy's Health Network Subscription Agreement.

The Executive Officer purported to terminate the agreement without cause under the contract, despite statutory provisions governing suspension for cause.

The court found a serious issue to be tried regarding whether the statutory framework displaced the contractual right to terminate.

Finding that the pharmacy would suffer irreparable harm and the balance of convenience favoured the patients' need for uninterrupted service, the court granted the interim stay, holding that the Proceedings Against the Crown Act did not preclude enjoining a Crown servant from exceeding statutory authority.

The appeals concerned whether the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations created a constitutionally adequate medical exemption to the criminal prohibition on marihuana possession for persons with serious medical needs.

The court held that the scheme violated s. 7 because it forced authorized users to rely on the black market for supply and because the requirement of a second specialist for category 3 applicants was an arbitrary barrier.

Those defects were not justified under s. 1.

Rather than invalidate the entire regime, the court struck down only the second specialist requirement and three production restrictions, thereby preserving a constitutionally valid medical exemption and restoring the validity of the possession prohibition.

The separate appeals seeking broader relief were dismissed.

The Crown requested a stay of the order of Lederman J. pending the release of the Court of Appeal's reasons on the main appeal.

The Court of Appeal declined to grant the stay, finding that the Crown had not demonstrated sufficient potential prejudice to warrant it.

The Court relied on the Crown's stated intention to operate under its interim policy pending the decision, with leave for any party to apply for interim relief if circumstances change.

The appellant, who suffers from AIDS, uses marihuana for medicinal purposes and obtained a personal exemption under s. 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

He applied for a declaration that his s. 7 Charter rights were infringed because the exemption did not protect his caregivers from criminal liability and the government failed to provide a safe supply of marihuana.

The Court of Appeal held that while the provincial superior court had jurisdiction to hear the constitutional challenge to the Act, the appellant failed to establish a s. 7 violation.

The Act itself did not preclude caregiver exemptions, and the appellant was not dependent on the government for his supply.